


it was real and we were the best

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Bikers, F/M, M/M, Multi, i listen to too much lana del rey, teenage runaway, tw: talks of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:19:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2030001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all happens at once; he doesn’t do things by inches or halfway. It’s all or nothing with him. </p>
<p>The one where Harry is a teenage runaway and Niall and the gang are bikers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it was real and we were the best

**Author's Note:**

> Mild talks of suicide

When Harry was little his mom used to put him on her hip and haul him to auditions for commercials and modeling jobs. He was bright eyed, bubbly, and too precocious for his own good so the recruiters ate up the blonde hair, greenish blue eyes, and the dimpled smile. Then everybody started calling Harry beautiful after he starred in his own commercial, nobody called him Harry anymore. It was always weird, having to look good on and off camera like some kind of puppet. By the age of fifteen he’d gotten so good at faking that he’d fooled himself into thinking what he felt was real. Harry was beautiful, everybody knew it.

But standing there in the dirty gas station bathroom with dirt under his fingernails, greasy hair, and large aviators on to hide his blood shot eyes Harry didn’t feel beautiful. His skin was too pale (he was so used to the California sun beating down on his back not endless amounts of rain and more rain) and he was too skinny. There was a pack of cigarettes in his back pocket, a shitty phone he’d bought at a Wal-Mart of all things, and a couple of bucks and his credit card. His parents had frozen over his account two weeks after he’d ran away and he was running out of cash fast.

Someone knocked angrily on the bathroom door so he took that as his cue to leave. He walked out and put his head down intent on nobody recognizing him. It’d been working for two months, he’d hop into a car with some sleazy looking middle aged guy going somewhere that wasn’t California and he’d touch Harry all needy and stuff like he’d hadn’t had a decent blow job in ages which honestly he probably hadn’t and then Harry would be off to his next destination.

Harry didn’t mind. He’d gotten used to just getting on his knees and putting his mouth to use. He was glad that those sleazy old dudes didn’t ever ask him his name and the ones that did always got a fake one, he wasn’t ready to be found not yet at least.

He walked out of the gas station and instantly wrapped his arms around himself, it was October in the middle of Baltimore and it had been raining so the chill that was going through the air was no joke. Harry could see his breath curling up like smoke every time he breathed out. He didn’t know which way to go, the gas station was practically empty and honestly he was getting tired.

He felt all types of restless and he was losing himself, hadn’t taken his meds in a good while and he felt like his skin was on fire itchy with what he didn’t know. He needed a good fuck or someone to get his mouth on, needed to feel like he was wanted again because he couldn’t take the silence.

He watched as a group of bikers pulled into the gas station parking lot, they either had a girl hopped up on the bike behind them or they were all alone. Harry’s interest was piqued, bikers never had a set destination they were touch and go. Harry was the same way, didn’t really need anything to keep him attached or tied down. He just liked knowing he was somewhere at one point, that he didn’t stay in one place and die in one place.

They were young was the first thing that caught Harry’s attention, almost Harry’s age and there was four bikers and three girlfriends. They looked ultra-cool, all clad in leather and shades that exuded confidence and ‘better than you.’ Harry didn’t care though, long as one of them was willing to take him where he wanted to go. He examined them, the only one without a girl was a blonde wearing shades darker than Harry’s and he glimpsed at Harry from where he was sitting on the sidewalk with his knees pulled up to his chest. It made his skin crawl but not like when the sleazy men in the trucks touched him but like he could feel something unrecognizable rising up inside of him.

It was weird.

He waited a bit till they were all inside before he was standing up and stumbling back in, a little hyped on something he couldn’t put his finger on. If his mom was there right now she’d tell him to settle down but at the same time she’d probably be dragging him home by his ankles. The bikers and their girlfriends were scattered around the gas station aisles looking for things to buy, none of them looked up when Harry stepped in. None of them but the blonde but he still had that look on his face, the unreadable look that had Harry fidgeting and doubting why he was there in the first place.

The blonde looked away and Harry felt more miniscule than dust. Nobody was supposed to make him feel like that, even under the eyes of half-drunk truck drivers Harry felt like he had the world in the middle of his palm and if he made a fist he could crush it. But with the blonde Harry didn’t feel like he was on the planet, didn’t even feel like he was worth a glance.

That was the first time that Harry truly felt like he wasn’t beautiful like all those years of being stuck in front of a camera and smiling and having to look good had all gone to shit because of that one moment.

Harry didn’t know how long he was standing there but he finally uprooted himself and ambled his way over to the blonde. He looked like the type who smoked whisky straight out of the bottle and Harry looked down at his hands they were bruised and they looked like the type that could either ruin a person or make them. Harry was going to take a chance.

“Hi.” Harry said in that innocent voice of his that he knew turned people on endlessly. He was slightly taller than the blonde but the way he was staring at Harry made him feel way too tiny and too small for his clothes. He’d gotten used to shrinking.

“Hey.” The blonde said. Harry wanted him to take his shades off so he could see the color of his eyes and what he was thinking behind that cool mask of indifference but Harry wasn’t getting that chance. Not tonight at least.

“Where you guys headed?” Harry asked.

“Wherever.”

“Can I come with?”

The blonde scoffed and Harry felt ridiculous but he willed himself not to blush, “who the hell are you?”

“I’m Cameron.” Harry said before he could think better. The guy hadn’t earned the privilege of his name yet.

“Cameron, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Where do you wanna go, Cameron?”

“Anywhere.”

The blonde looked him up and down and then said, “You’re gonna have to work for it.”

Harry was nodding before the words were even out of the boy’s mouth, “of course. Yeah.” And then he was wrapping his hands around the blonde’s wrist and shoving him inside the gas station bathroom. He was good at getting on his knees and the blonde obviously thought so too by the way his hands fisted in Harry’s hair as if Harry was the only thing keeping his feet planted firmly on the ground.

When Harry pulled off him the blonde still hadn’t taken off his glasses and he didn’t even have the predictable blissed out look on his face like the others did, he was completely stoic.

“C’mon then.” He said and then he fixed his fly and walked out with Harry and his uncoordinated limbs following behind. The blonde’s biker friends were all outside waiting for him when they got there; when they saw Harry they didn’t even ask questions. Harry wondered if the girls he had thought were girlfriends were really girlfriends or were they a quickie in a nasty bathroom. But the way the girls were holding onto their hands and the way they looked at the girls it didn’t look like a ‘quickie in the bathroom’ status kind of look. It looked way more than that and Harry almost had the breath knocked out of him.

\--

Harry didn’t know how long they were on the road with his skin freezing and his teeth rattling more than his bones but he didn’t care. Sitting on that motorcycle with his arms wrapped tight around the blonde’s waist for dear life he felt like right there was where he was supposed to be. He could’ve sworn that if he pressed the side of his face to the blonde’s back he could hear his heartbeat.

The motel they parked at was almost empty and the girls were all giggling about something when they got off as if they had been having some weird telepathic communication, the brunette with the large lips grabbed him and said something to the boys. They didn’t really seem to the care looking like they were fine with loitering outside and smoking cigs.

Harry caught the blonde’s eye before he was being pushed inside by the beautiful girls with dangerous edges.

“So who’re you?” The platinum blonde asks with the big blue eyes.

“Cameron.” The name is fake and heavy on his tongue but he won’t let them know who he is, he’s come this far and plus he doesn’t feel compelled to anyways. These girls don’t mean a thing to him, he could leave right then and the funny thing is he wouldn’t know their names or anything about them. It’s a funny thing how back in California Harry knew everything about everyone but now; he can’t remember who was the last guy besides the blonde who had their dick down his throat. He’s cheap, it occurs to him that way. He exudes the rich, washed out, Hollywood golden boy who now gives free blowjobs in scratchy bathroom floors all for a ride.

Harry had an Aston Martin. It’s all so funny to him now how materialistic he used to be.

“You’re cute.” The other brunette says and Harry laughs,

“Okay.”

“How old are you, Cam?”

“Eighteen.” He says and it’s the only true thing he’s said all day.

The one with the big lips whistles, “You’re a baby.”

“Not really.” He says, doesn’t like being compared to a baby it kind of feels perverted in a way knowing all the things he’s done.

“I’m Sophia, that’s El, and that is Perrie.”

The boys walk in reeking of cigarettes and the one that Sophia keeps making eyes at goes to check them in. Harry drums on his thigh and he watches as the guy checking them in tosses the blonde a pair of keys. The blonde taps at Harry’s hips twice and then he’s walking away, Harry follows him and doesn’t look back.

\--

Their room is clean, well as clean as a motel room can be anyway, and it’s the first time in months that Harry’s been in a room with a bathroom. Harry stands in the middle of the room as the blonde pulls out a baggie of cocaine from his jacket pocket then he strips out of his shirt all while saying nothing to Harry. Harry doesn’t know what to do without someone guiding him. It’s a bad habit. Reliance.

“Ever shot up before?” The blonde asks him and Harry suddenly notes some kind of Irish mixed with Northern accent like he was raised by Irish people but grew up in New York City. He does have the whole dirty dangerous white boy thing going for him Harry will give him that with the bloody knuckles and the drugs. He’s rock and roll but all rock.

“Yes.” Harry says because he’s been to enough Hollywood parties because he’s fucked enough people while blazed the fuck out of his mind.

“Take off your shirt.” The blonde says and Harry does exactly that. Harry wonders if the boy will ever tell him his name but Harry doesn’t really want to know, is cool with just whatever this is. He’ll be left alone in either a couple of days or hours depending on what kind of person the blonde is so he doesn’t really need his name just needs something to make him feel alive, make his skin feel like it isn’t burning up. He needs his meds can’t think straight without them but he didn’t bring them.

He doesn’t exactly know what he’s feeling, one part of his mind is telling him to do the drugs and have sex with the blonde who’s fucking sexy and is built nicely and could probably fuck Harry into the mattress without breaking a sweat but another part of his brain is telling him to kill himself… that he’s worthless and honestly he always gets like that when he’s not on his meds. But he forgets sometimes.

The blonde boy tugs at his wrist till Harry is lying down on his back on the bed shirtless. The blonde boy is the same way too and Harry studies him, he has abs but they aren’t too defined like he works out but he doesn’t do it with a purpose and he has fine blonde hairs on his stomach. Harry wants to touch but he doesn’t just kind of looks and thinks about touching.

The blonde boy puts the cocaine on Harry’s stomach and he separates them cleanly with a blade that kind of cuts Harry but it doesn’t hurt just makes him feel more there than he was before. He likes being reminded. The ceiling is dirty and Harry wonders how someone can dirty the ceiling. Harry feels out of it and he’s not even on any drugs and maybe that’s the problem.

“I wanna try.” Harry finds himself saying and the blonde says,

“Okay.”

So he pulls Harry up by his wrist. The blonde boy already has this weird look in his eye and he has cocaine under his nose and it makes him look edgier, makes him look dangerous. Harry’s a little scared but a lot more fascinated.

The boy puts the cocaine on the fucked up bedside table and separates them and looks at Harry expectantly. Harry crawls over and he snorts it and he squeezes his eyes shut, it burns but it feels so fucking good. The physical pain distracts him from what his mind is screaming at him and how his skin felt. He snorts another line and that’s when he starts stripping.

He always gets a little horny after he’s snorted and then after he’s horny he gets down down down.

“Hey,” Harry says to the blonde boy who’s just looking at him and Harry realizes they still have shades on and they look ridiculous but Harry doesn’t want to be the first to take off his shades isn’t ready to show the blonde boy no matter how gorgeous he is that part of himself. “Wanna fuck?”

“I always wanna fuck.”

“Alright. You got stuff?” Harry’s voice sounds too far away but he doesn’t care, just wants to get fucked.

“Yeah.” The blonde says.

“Okay. I’m gonna ride you.”

“Alright.”

\--

Harry stumbles into the bathroom around four in the morning and he hasn’t slept a wink. The blonde boy is out in the motel balcony smoking a cig; Harry sees the crimson end of the stick lighting up. Harry looks a mess his hair is fucked and his eyes are bloodshot and he doesn’t know if it’s lack of sleep or too much drugs. He can’t bear the thought of looking at himself so he gets into the shower, feels a little scared for reasons he doesn’t know because his heart is beating so loud inside of his chest and he doesn’t know if he’s dying or living.

He turns on the shower and the water is impossibly cold, so cold that he doesn’t bother even turning it to hot. He just kind of half-heartedly lathers himself and washes his hair, his toes and his fingers feel numb and he is shivering but he can’t be bothered to care. If he was still the boy he was before he’d be in Manhattan right now, walking a runway he doesn’t give a fuck about.

When he gets out of the bathroom he wraps the scratchy motel towel around his body and walks back to the room. The blonde is still outside smoking, still has his shades on and he had taken them off while they were fucking and Harry had caught a glimpse of blue before he made Harry get off his dick and he pressed Harry’s face into the mattress and fucked him from behind.

Harry doesn’t even bother putting clothes, just wraps the hotel sheets around him, grabs his cigs, and walks out to the balcony. He sits on a chair next to the blonde and neither of them say a thing for a while. The city is entirely too loud but Harry needs it, doesn’t like the silence because he thinks too much. He realizes he doesn’t have a lighter when he has the cigarette in his mouth and he blinks slowly.

“May I borrow a light?” He’s always been so polite, even after getting fucked like he couldn’t mean a damn thing he still can’t shake how he was raised. The blonde doesn’t give him the light he reaches over and he lights it for Harry and their eyes catch, Harry doesn’t have shades on but the blonde does. Harry looks away because he feels entirely too vulnerable.

Harry takes a drag and thinks about the smoke being pulled into his lungs about how rotten he’s become. It all happens at once; he doesn’t do things by inches or halfway. It’s all or nothing with him. Back in Hollywood he was all in the fame game, did all he could to keep his status and when he didn’t want it anymore he dropped it. He’s a very sincere type of person at least that is what his mother has always told him. But she’s also told him he’s a very beautiful type of person but he doesn’t think beautiful people do the things he does. But then he thinks of the blonde boy sitting next to him, who’s that dangerous type of beautiful.

The blonde boy could probably kill him and Harry wouldn’t mind.

They don’t talk the whole night because they don’t really need words. It’s seven in the morning when they hop onto the bikes again. Harry wraps his arm around the blonde’s waist and he wishes for things he doesn’t know or probably will never have again.

\--

They end up at the beach for some weird reason. The weather is shitty and cold but the girls hop off the bikes and run to the ocean like it’s the last thing they’ll ever see. They strip off their clothes till they’re in their underwear and bra and Harry kind of just laughs. Harry hasn’t been to the beach in ages and he’s always liked it but he doesn’t know what to do. He wants to go but at the same time there are people around, who recognize people like him even in the middle of Baltimore where instead of sunny it’s all grey.

“Aren’t you gonna go?” The blonde asks him, lighting up a cigarette. The other three boys are staring at him too and they have cigarettes in between their lips also. They’re all gorgeous but not as gorgeous as the blonde boy who looks like a fucking red light, a warning, but Harry doesn’t care.

“I don’t know.” Harry says and the blonde just looks at him then shrugs. Harry doesn’t budge and the blonde boy starts talking to the other three. Harry doesn’t really get the conversation, isn’t really in on what they’re talking about but mid-way the boy wraps his arm around Harry’s waist casually and he taps it three times Harry doesn’t know what it means but his skin is on fire.

\--

They’re all sitting in a diner and the blonde boy who Harry figures out is named Niall after one of his friends said it has his arm slung around Harry’s shoulder like they’re dating. Harry doesn’t care he likes being wanted and even if the blonde boy just wants someone to fuck and Harry’s convenient he doesn’t mind.

The girls, Harry notes, all have thick Jersey accents and they’re all loud and brash and beautiful. Nobody in Hollywood is like this, Hollywood is all fake and posh while these girls are Jersey bold and real and the boys are even more. They’re all tatted besides Niall and the boy named Zayn that’s with Perrie talks about his job as a tattoo artist, Louis who El says ‘belongs to her’ is a James Dean type with eyes that look nothing but dead unless he’s looking at Eleanor, and Liam who’s buff and who wraps his arms around Sophia like they’re conjoined doesn’t do much talking. He smokes almost as much as Niall and he watches only putting in some words when he wants.

The waitress sets down their plates of greasy food with a smile larger than Texas and they’re all digging in almost immediately. Harry is in the middle of shoving a waffle into his mouth when he looks up at all these people who he barely knows and who looked way too scary in the beginning but sitting there laughing with their mouths full Harry thinks that they look just like kids. They all may be older than him but they belong to someone.

Harry doesn’t really think he does though.

\--

The next motel they stop at is in the middle of Pennsylvania and Harry finds himself face down on the mattress again with Niall pushing into him, Niall doesn’t talk during sex only soft moans every now and again and Harry is the same way. Talking during sex is way too personal for him as if he’s giving away a part of himself. Sex has never been as intimate to him as everyone makes it out to be, it’s dirty and it’s fast paced and it’s fun.

But it isn’t romantic or intimate. Talking would just ruin that.

When Niall pulls out and Harry collapses on his face he can hear Niall looking for a cigarette. Niall lights up right in the bed next to him and Harry pulls his face out of the pillow long enough to glimpse at this boy. Harry has never seen him smile, even when they were all at the diner stuffing their faces Harry didn’t see him smile. Harry wants to.

“What are you looking at?” Niall asks him when Harry doesn’t look away.

“Your face.” Harry says simply.

“Why the fuck are you doing that?”

“Dunno.” _Want to memorize it, all your features ‘cause you’re the most beautiful person I’ve seen in a while._

“You ain’t like us, are you?”

“No. Not really.”

“Why the fuck you came along then?”

“Didn’t want to be myself anymore.”

“Wanted to be Cameron?” Niall is looking down at him like he knows all of Harry’s dirty little secrets. Harry doesn’t know what to say so he doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t owe Niall his words. “What’s wrong with the old you?”

“Never said anything was wrong. Just got sick of being me.”

“Then there was something wrong.”

This is the first conversation him and Niall are having. Harry likes that he doesn’t do much of that bullshit small talk, he jumps right into things. Harry likes people like that because they’re unpredictable.

“I started feeling like there was more I should be accomplishing than I was before. I didn’t want to die a small death, didn’t want to die with nothing to show for.”

Niall doesn’t say anything just kind of looks at him a little like he’s figured him out but the pieces he has don’t match the pieces Harry is giving him. It gives him this weird sort of satisfaction and Niall lets Harry watch him not that Harry would’ve stopped anyway.

\--

“You’re really beautiful you know that?” Perrie tells him when they’re both at the vending machine getting something to drink. She’s in a large t-shirt with shorts underneath that aren’t even visible and she has her platinum blonde hair in a cute bun on top of her head. Harry’s skin crawls with being called beautiful and he has this sudden urge to smash his head into the vending machine glass so he kind of steps back. Because sometimes his urges turn into reality.

“No, I didn’t.” Harry finally says and she scoffs,

“Of course you are. Niall let you come didn’t he?”

“Niall let me come ‘cause I suck dick like a pro.” It’s vulgar and it’s rude and his mom would’ve probably smacked him but it’s the truth because when you strip it down, that’s why he’s even there. He’s good at getting at his knees and he ain’t ashamed of it, as long as it gets him where he wants to go he’s cool with it.

“Yeah but Niall has standards. He wouldn’t have let a troll suck him off either.”

“And they said chivalry was dead.” Harry deadpans and she laughs a little but is still looking at him oddly.

“You are though… beautiful. It’s kind of haunting. You look familiar.”

Harry doesn’t even get nervous, “I get that a lot.”

“Come.” She says after she gets her drink and Harry walks into the motel room with her. He keeps thinking about her words, wonders how come her saying them has a different effect than a random agent in Hollywood shouting it at him.

_You are though… beautiful._

\--

Harry feels like they drive for four straight days through Pennsylvania and he doesn’t mind one bit. He likes the feel of Niall’s hot skin under his fingertips and he likes the way the wind wraps itself around Harry makes him feel a little weightless and brave like he could untangle his arms from Niall’s waist or rule the world. But the bravery is keeping him tangled in Niall anyway.

They stop at a gas station once and Harry and the girls are inside getting sweets and drinks and Harry looks up and he sees Niall looking at him. He has his shades on but it’s no mistaken who he’s looking at and Harry looks back, doesn’t really know what Niall is thinking but god he hopes Niall looks at him like that all the time and that’s when he realizes that he should probably leave.

That getting attached to these too loud girls and these quiet dudes and this beautiful blonde thing with arms that hold his hands above his head and lips that are pressed to his shoulders late at night or early in the morning depending on perspective is way too dangerous. But he can’t leave and not because of the free rides or the free fuck, it’s because he feels wanted.

It’s crazy and he’s crazy but he has his arms wrapped around Niall’s waist on that motorcycle and it almost feels like Niall is holding onto him too even though it’s impossible. So Harry doesn’t leave and he knows it’s a mistake.

\--

They’re all in Perrie and Zayn’s room for some weird reason, some are on the bed and some are on the floor. He and Niall are on the floor, Niall’s legs are open and Harry is in between them like he belongs. They’re all high off some good kush that Zayn scored off some guy somewhere and they have a good buzz going on. Niall keeps kissing his neck and Harry wants to crawl into the other boy because he feels so good.

“Hey, Cameron you a model?” Sophia suddenly asks him making him startle a bit. He doesn’t even realize she was speaking to him till they’re all looking at him.

“No.”

“You carry yourself like one.” El adds and Harry shrugs,

“Maybe I was one in the past life.”

“I was a model but the industry is too cut throat for me.” El says conversationally and Harry is looking at her but she isn’t even looking at him. Either she actually has no clue who he is or she’s good at faking and not putting him on the spot. Niall says,

“You’re beautiful though. How the fuck do you look like that?” Only Harry can hear him and Harry almost feels like collapsing into Niall, could stay right where he is forever. Some Arctic Monkeys song is playing from Louis’ phone and it’s fitting, the lyrics that are playing- _and do you look into the mirror to remind yourself you're there_ \- and Harry knows, fuck he knows that it’s the high talking that Niall is baked out of his mind but he likes to pretend that Niall wants him all of him. He doesn’t know why though considering but he wouldn’t mind having Niall. It’s just he’s not good enough for Niall.

“I’m not beautiful.”

“You are. You look like death and my first breath all at fucking once.”

Harry and Niall stumble out of Zayn and Perrie’s room and Niall high out of his mind fucks Harry on his back with Harry looking up into sea glass eyes and drowning drowning drowning. He’s seeing stars like the constellations all pulled together just to give him this, this one night where his skin felt like his own and his body belonged to him and this boy inside of him was his all of his for just one night. He wrapped his arms around Niall’s shoulders, pulled them so they were flush,

“I wanna feel this in the morning.” So he never forgets.

\--

Things change in a way he doesn’t understand but doesn’t really need to after that. Niall doesn’t wear shades around him anymore and before they get ready to go into another city Harry is going to add onto his list Niall grasps his face and he kisses him and it feels like a prayer. Harry doesn’t really understand what he’s praying for though.

They’re all sitting in a booth at McDonalds and Harry is practically on Niall’s lap and Niall hasn’t told him to move once and his hands are under Harry’s shirt, caressing his waist and Harry just turns his heads and presses small meaningful kisses on Niall’s neck up to his jaw. He knows the others don’t care probably because they’re doing the same.

When Niall looks down at him all the breath Harry had in him is gone because all he can think about is how Niall is looking at him. Niall is looking at him like Zayn had looked at Perrie that first night when Harry had saw them like Harry had Niall’s world in the palm of his head and he could just make a fist and break it. And instead of feeling powerful he felt like throwing up.

He excused himself and found himself pacing in the middle of a McDonalds bathroom because he had no idea what to do with himself. And it scared him the first thought that came to mind was running, was pushing the McDonalds window open and walking out. But he wasn’t going to do that, wasn’t going to make a fist. But things weren’t okay he could feel it.

He’d gone too long without his meds and all he could think about was either killing himself or doing some drugs. He didn’t know what to do so he just splashed some water in his face and walked back out. He hadn’t slept in days.

\--

“Niall,” Harry says that night and Niall says,

“Yeah?”

“I’m bipolar.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I get really wonky sometimes. I get weird about things.”

“What are you weird about now?”

“Me. You.”

“Us?”

“Yeah. You make me nervous and not the good kind.”

“Why?”

“Cause I feel like I’m going to hurt you or hurt myself in turn hurting you.”

“You hurt a lot of people?”

“Yeah. Unintentionally but it happens.”

“You hurt yourself?”

“I used to when I was younger. I used to have to stay in hospitals for a long time. I don’t have my meds, I hate them but they keep me sane.”

“How badly do you need your meds?”

“Bad.”

“What happens if you don’t have them?”

“I don’t know. I get… weird.”

“What’s your medicine called?”

“Paxil.”

“Okay.”

“Why, Niall?”

“Nothing, baby. Go to sleep.”

“Niall?”

“Hm.”

“Why don’t you ever call me by my name?”

“Because I don’t know it.”

“…”

“…”

“It’s Harry.”

“Go to sleep, Harry.”

\--

Harry will remember that day for a long time because it started out as a normal day. Niall and his friends were discussing something but they were always discussing something and Harry and the girls were just chilling out have some smokes till they left. And when Niall was done talking to Harry he grabbed Harry’s face and stared at him for some time before kissing him with Harry’s hands in the middle of them.

They drove off and Harry could hear Niall’s heartbeat mixing with the thrumming of the motorcycle. He had this sudden urge to let go of Niall but not because he felt brave or free or anything just so he could fall. He closed his eyes and willed himself to stop thinking about stuff like that because hurting Niall was not in the plan.

Harry was confused when they stopped in front of a CVS and Niall told him he didn’t have to come. Niall and Liam were the only ones who walked inside and Harry’s skin started to crawl because he’d always been good at reading when bad shit was going to happen. He looked at Perrie who was looking at him and then at Sophia who didn’t look bothered one bit and El who was the epitome of cool.

He didn’t know what was happening inside of the store but as the time ticked by he started getting restless, started getting fidgety and scared but then Niall and Liam were running out. Niall had a bag in his hand and Harry had no idea what it was but it didn’t look like he had gotten it by being an upstanding member of society.

Harry was praying to god Niall didn’t do what Harry thought he did but Harry had never really believed in God and God had never really believed in him either.

\--

“Niall, what the fuck?”

Niall pressed the bag into Harry’s hand and stared at him, “C’mon, baby I got you your meds.”

“You stole them.”

“You said you needed them bad.”

“I didn’t want you to get in trouble.” Harry was shaking, the bag was his hand and he could feel the container full of pills but he was so fucking confused, his head felt too big for him and he was way out of his limit. He was staring at Niall with wide eyes because he didn’t know whether to slap him or kiss him.

“You think this is the worst I’ve done?” Niall was going for light but he said it so seriously that Harry just stared at him. “Just take your meds, Harry.”

Harry was still staring at Niall and it hit him standing right in the middle of that room why this was happening. He was in love with Niall; his dumbass just went and fell in love with Niall. Harry didn’t even know his last name but in all honesty it didn’t really seem that important, not when Niall had done that and not when Niall told him that they didn’t have to fuck and for Harry to just sleep.

That was the first night Harry went to sleep without twisting and turning.

\--

Harry knew that he couldn’t run forever, knew that subconsciously his mother or his manager was going to find him somewhere but when he finds himself face to face with his mom and his whole fucking entourage standing in the middle of a dingy motel in the middle of Jersey well shit hits the proverbial fan.

“You have a contract.” His mom says looking pissed and disgusted at the company he’s been keeping and Harry just wants to throw up all over her Prada heels. He wants to tell her that he doesn’t care about his contract but it’s all out now. He looks at Niall who’s looking at him the same way he did that night they met, like Harry was nothing but a good fuck and not much else.

Harry didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know whether to reach out to Niall or go back to Hollywood and be met with the shit storm that was bound to come his way. He was always good at making bad decisions so when he said goodbye to Niall it felt like an ‘i love you’ and Niall just stared after him without a word.

That was the first time Harry had cried in months and he doesn’t really know why. Boys like him don’t believe in happy endings but he believed in Niall.


End file.
